OPENING NIGHT: THIRD ACT

Tadashi Nakamura (Nobuko Miyamoto: A Song in Movement, Mele Murals) has known since he was a kid that he’d have to make a documentary about his father. Robert A. Nakamura, now in his late 80s, is a legend in Asian American independent film circles. His 1972 short documentary, Manzanar, and 1980 feature, Hito Hata, were some of the earliest films about Japanese American incarceration.

An accomplished documentarian himself, Tadashi splits his father’s life into three acts. First, as a young boy in Manzanar, Robert wished he was anything but Japanese American. Second, as an aspiring filmmaker, he “left a lucrative photography career to find fulfillment in documenting the emerging Asian American political movement. And third, the aging “Godfather of Asian American Cinema” faces his inevitable decline, after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

Tadashi also represents the third act of his family’s American immigration story, and Third Act grapples with how he can keep his grandfather’s and father’s stories alive for future generations.

The CAAM-funded film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, and this is the Bay Area premiere. Director Tadashi Nakamura is expected to attend as well as Executive Producer Diane Quon (New Wave, Home Court), producers Eurie Chung (Asian Americans, Mele Murals) and Ursula Liang (9-Man, Down a Dark Stairwell), and Editor Victoria Chalk (Ashima, A Decent Home).